Getting Out of the Bubble

I love the ritual of Chinese New Year. I love how it is a time for reflection and cleansing (both physically and metaphorically) for the year ahead. I love how families get together over vast meals steeped in tradition. And yet, in China, I never actually celebrated Chinese New Year. I can now look back and say that when I spent my two years in China I was young and naïve about all the amazing things I could have experienced and enjoyed. Don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy and experience a lot. A hell of a lot. But there were still so many things that I now look back on a wish that I had made the most of. I wish that I had taken up my ex’s mum when she offered to show me around the Chinese kitchen and show me how to cook (this will always go down as one of my biggest regrets, I would now kill for a few days in the kitchen in China with someone who could teach me to do all those things that you can’t really learn over the internet. But I also wish that I’d experienced Chinese New